Fixing Chromium Hangs That Eat Up All Mouse Clicks

Experiencing Chromium hangs that render your mouse clicks useless can be incredibly frustrating. At revWhiteShadow, we, revWhiteShadow and kts, understand this issue intimately, having encountered similar problems across various Linux distributions. This comprehensive guide details potential causes and practical solutions to resolve this annoying Chromium behavior, even when you can’t replicate the problem easily.

Understanding the Chromium Hang and Mouse Click Issue

The problem described – Chromium hanging, preventing mouse clicks within the browser and, seemingly, stealing focus from other applications – appears to be a relatively rare but persistent issue affecting users on X11 with AMD GPUs. The fact that it occurs across different Linux distributions (like Linux Mint and OpenSUSE) and hardware configurations suggests a potential conflict involving Chromium, the X server, and AMD graphics drivers. The consistent report of the issue cropping up when hovering the mouse over a tab and a tooltip appears provides a useful clue for tracking the bug.

Initial Troubleshooting Steps

Before diving into more complex solutions, perform these essential troubleshooting steps:

  1. Update Chromium: Ensure you are using the latest version of Chromium. Outdated versions often contain bugs that have been addressed in newer releases. You can typically update Chromium through your distribution’s package manager, such as apt on Debian/Ubuntu-based systems or zypper on OpenSUSE.

  2. Update Your AMD Graphics Drivers: Outdated or corrupted graphics drivers can cause conflicts with Chromium. Use your distribution’s driver management tools to update to the latest stable drivers. On some systems, proprietary AMD drivers (AMDGPU-PRO) may offer better stability than open-source drivers, but consider testing both. Note the difference between amdgpu and amdgpu-pro.

  3. Disable Hardware Acceleration: Chromium’s hardware acceleration feature can sometimes lead to instability, especially with certain graphics cards and drivers. To disable it:

    • Go to chrome://settings/system in your Chromium address bar.
    • Toggle the “Use hardware acceleration when available” option to the off position.
    • Restart Chromium.

  4. Clear Chromium Cache and Cookies: Corrupted cache data can occasionally cause Chromium to behave erratically. Clearing the cache and cookies can help resolve this:

    • Go to chrome://settings/clearBrowserData in your Chromium address bar.
    • Select “All time” as the time range.
    • Check the boxes for “Cookies and other site data” and “Cached images and files.”
    • Click “Clear data.”

  5. Disable Extensions: Browser extensions can sometimes interfere with Chromium’s functionality. Try disabling all extensions to see if the issue is resolved. You can disable extensions by going to chrome://extensions/ and toggling them off. If disabling all extensions fixes the problem, re-enable them one by one to identify the culprit.

  6. Check X11 Configuration: While the issue is unlikely to be caused by a general X11 misconfiguration, verify that your xorg.conf file (if present) is not causing conflicts. Consider creating a backup of your xorg.conf file and temporarily removing it to see if it resolves the issue. The file is generally located at /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

  7. Investigate X Server Issues With xev: Use the xev utility (usually included in your X11 development packages) to monitor X server events. Run xev in a terminal and move your mouse over a Chromium window while replicating the issue. Examine the output for any unusual events or errors that might point to a conflict.

  8. Monitor System Resource Usage with top and htop: Keep an eye on your CPU, memory, and I/O usage using tools like top or htop. A sudden spike in resource consumption when the hang occurs could indicate a process hogging resources and impacting Chromium’s responsiveness.

Advanced Troubleshooting Techniques

If the basic troubleshooting steps don’t resolve the issue, consider these more advanced techniques:

  1. Examine Chromium’s Internal Task Manager: Chromium has its own task manager that can provide insights into resource usage by individual tabs and extensions. To access it, press Shift + Esc while Chromium is open. This can help you identify if a specific tab or extension is causing the hang.

  2. Profile Chromium’s Performance: Chromium’s built-in profiling tools can help you identify performance bottlenecks. To profile Chromium:

    • Open Chromium’s DevTools by pressing F12.
    • Go to the “Performance” tab.
    • Click the record button and reproduce the hang.
    • Stop the recording and analyze the performance profile. Look for long tasks or excessive garbage collection.

  3. Investigate GPU Process Issues: The user reported that killing the GPU process resolves the issue temporarily. This suggests a problem with the GPU process specifically. Try these steps:

    • Isolate the GPU Process: Use Chromium’s task manager (Shift + Esc) to identify the PID of the GPU process.
    • Monitor GPU Process Resource Usage: Use tools like top or htop to specifically monitor the resource usage of the GPU process. Look for excessive CPU or memory usage.
    • Run Chromium with Specific GPU Flags: Chromium provides command-line flags that can affect GPU processing. Try running Chromium with the --disable-gpu flag to completely disable GPU acceleration. If this resolves the issue, it strongly suggests a problem with GPU acceleration. You can also experiment with other GPU-related flags, such as --gpu-process-per-tab or --use-gl=desktop (or --use-gl=egl).

  4. Check X11 Compositor Settings: The compositor (e.g., Compton, Xfwm4, KWin) manages window compositing effects in X11. Conflicts between the compositor and Chromium can sometimes cause issues. Try temporarily disabling your compositor to see if it resolves the hang. If it does, investigate your compositor’s settings for potential conflicts.

  5. Kernel Version Considerations: The user reported issues on kernel versions 5.4 and 5.13. While a direct kernel bug is less likely, it’s worth testing a newer kernel if possible. Newer kernels often include improvements to graphics drivers and X11 support. Consider using a mainline kernel or a kernel from a newer distribution.

  6. Investigating the Tooltip Issue: The recurrent detail about the issue happening when tooltips are shown is essential. Explore ways to disable tooltips, or modify their behavior.

    • Chromium Flags: Check Chromium flags via chrome://flags for tooltip-related settings. Experiment with disabling or modifying tooltip behavior if available.
    • Desktop Environment Settings: Some desktop environments allow customization of tooltip appearance and behavior. Investigate settings in Mate or KDE related to tooltips.
    • Accessibility Settings: Sometimes accessibility features influence tooltip rendering. Check accessibility settings within Chromium and your desktop environment.

  7. Inspect X Server Logs: The X server logs (/var/log/Xorg.0.log or similar) can provide valuable information about graphics driver errors or other issues. Examine these logs for any errors or warnings that occur around the time of the Chromium hang.

  8. Experiment with Different Chromium Builds: Consider trying alternative Chromium builds, such as Chromium Beta, Chromium Dev, or even unofficial builds like Ungoogled Chromium. These builds may contain fixes or changes that address the issue.

  9. Monitor D-Bus Activity: D-Bus is a message bus system used for inter-process communication in Linux. Conflicts or issues with D-Bus can sometimes affect Chromium. Use tools like d-feet or dbus-monitor to monitor D-Bus activity while replicating the hang.

  10. Consider a Clean Chromium Profile: Sometimes, a corrupted Chromium profile can cause unexpected behavior. Create a new Chromium profile to see if the issue is resolved. You can create a new profile by going to chrome://settings/manageProfile and clicking “Add person.”

  11. Report the Bug to Chromium Developers: If you have exhausted all troubleshooting steps and are still experiencing the issue, consider reporting the bug to the Chromium developers. Provide as much detail as possible, including your system configuration, steps to reproduce the issue (if possible), and any error messages you have encountered.

    • File a bug report on the Chromium bug tracker: https://bugs.chromium.org/
    • Include details about your Linux distribution, kernel version, AMD graphics card model, and driver version.
    • Mention that the issue seems to be related to tooltips and the GPU process.

  12. Investigate specific AMD GPU drivers and configurations: Some AMD GPU driver versions might have specific bugs or quirks that interact negatively with Chromium on X11.

    • Test different driver versions: Downgrading or upgrading to a different AMD GPU driver version could potentially resolve conflicts. Refer to your distribution’s documentation for information on how to manage graphics drivers.
    • Check driver-specific configuration files: Some AMD drivers have configuration files that allow you to fine-tune performance and behavior. Examine these files (usually located in /etc/X11/) for any settings that might be causing issues.

  13. X11 and GL Vendor Conflicts: Sometimes there can be issues regarding the GL vendor that Chromium picks. You can try overriding this by using LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 before starting Chromium to use software rendering. Note that it can have severe performance impacts.

Specific Considerations for AMD GPUs

Given the reported commonality of AMD GPUs, consider these additional points:

  1. AMDGPU-PRO vs. AMDGPU: Experiment with both the open-source amdgpu driver and the proprietary amdgpu-pro driver. The amdgpu-pro driver sometimes offers better performance and stability, but it may not be compatible with all systems.
  2. DRI Configuration: Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI) is a subsystem of X11 that allows applications to directly access the graphics hardware. Ensure that DRI is properly configured for your AMD GPU. You can check your DRI configuration using the glxinfo command.
  3. Mesa Version Conflicts: The Mesa library provides the open-source OpenGL implementation used by the amdgpu driver. Conflicts or bugs in Mesa can sometimes cause issues with Chromium.
    • Update Mesa: Ensure you have the latest version of Mesa installed. You can update Mesa through your distribution’s package manager.
    • Test different Mesa versions: If possible, try testing different Mesa versions to see if it resolves the issue.

Workarounds (While Awaiting a Permanent Fix)

While a permanent solution is being sought, here are some workarounds:

  1. Restart the GPU Process: As the user discovered, killing the GPU process in Chromium’s task manager can temporarily resolve the issue. This is a quicker solution than restarting the entire browser.
  2. Avoid Hovering Over Tabs: Since the issue often occurs when hovering over tabs, try to minimize hovering over tabs, especially when tooltips are likely to appear.
  3. Keyboard Navigation: When the mouse clicks become unresponsive, rely on keyboard navigation as much as possible. Use Ctrl+Tab to switch tabs, Ctrl+L to focus the address bar, and keyboard shortcuts for other common actions.

Conclusion

Fixing Chromium hangs that eat up mouse clicks requires a methodical approach. By systematically working through the troubleshooting steps outlined above, you can identify the root cause of the issue and implement a solution. We, at revWhiteShadow, hope this guide has been helpful in resolving this frustrating problem. Remember to report your findings to the Chromium developers to help them improve the browser for everyone. The consistent reporting of these details are essential for others to be able to fix this problem for the future.